Immigration: António Costa's structural reform

The streets are more or less the same. Parking is increasingly scarce. Breweries, restaurants, barbers and workshops remain in their places. What was once the Bairro 6 de Maio is still waiting for the development that a few years ago, if the news is to be believed, was yet another triumph of concrete and now, according to news that is a genuine successor to the previous ones in the activist style, is urgently needed to solve the housing crisis. The train line that is to be modernized is still outdated and even the core of the PCP seems more like a memory than a reality.

Electorally speaking, we are in lands that began by passing from the PCP to the PS and where now the socialists are winning, or rather still winning, while the PSD is growing very slowly and Chega has almost multiplied its vote by ten between 2019 (2.20) and 2025 (21.20).

But in this scenario where the landscape remains almost a metaphor for the ineffectiveness of the State – the Cova da Moura neighborhood has been an urban-administrative-judicial imbroglio for 50 years and even what used to be functional, such as some tunnels and passages, ceases to function because their safe use cannot be guaranteed – the great change is human and is brought about by immigration. Or more precisely by the characteristics of immigration in recent years.

In fact, since the 1960s, Cape Verdeans have been arriving in this once red belt to work in the then metropolis. Later, returnees and Angolans arrived... Therefore, unlike what happens in other parts of Portugal, the presence of migrants, immigrants and foreigners in this area is by no means new. What has changed is their profile – within a radius of a few hundred metres there are four mosques – and their near omnipresence in some places.

As I walked through the streets of Damaia-Reboleira, it became obvious to me that it is false to say that António Costa's governments did not reform the country. In fact, the PS changed the country structurally. And we know how, the nationality law and the law on foreigners, and when, 2017.

In 2017, according to Eurostat, Portugal had 3.6% of foreign citizens. At the end of 2023, this percentage was 9.83%, also according to Eurostat. But when AIMA updated this data for 2024, we reached 15% of the immigrant population.

If this is not a structural reform, what is a structural reform?

It is already known that there are countries where these percentages are higher, which does not in any way reduce our problems, but it does raise questions that we need to answer, particularly regarding the forms of reception and the profile of immigrants: Switzerland has a percentage of 31.2% of immigrants, but it has immeasurably fewer problems in this area than Belgium, which has 19%. Countries are not all the same in the way they welcome people, and neither are immigrants. We know this well from our own experience as emigrants!

In Portugal, there is a before and after in the governments of António Costa in this matter. The responsibility for the change in legislation on foreigners is usually attributed to the harmful influence of the BE and the PCP in the left-wing geringonça that governed Portugal at the time. But this is only part of the explanation and is largely intended to excuse António Costa and the PS rather than to portray reality. Not only did António Costa not hesitate to remove Luísa Maia Gonçalves, the director of the SEF that he himself had appointed, when she spoke out against the legislative changes and warned of the negative impact that they would have on immigration policies, but his government also tried to prevent the SEF's opinion from reaching parliament when the changes to the legislation were being discussed .

The PS did not need the help of the BE and the PCP to enthusiastically and vigorously align themselves with the accusations of xenophobia against Passos Coelho when he warned of the tremendous mistake that was being made: “ For the first time in many years, we have had in Portugal a political leader of the largest opposition party trying out a racist and xenophobic speech, similar to what we see in other countries, such as France and the United States ”, stated João Galamba, while António Costa claimed that “ The PSD and its leader, Pedro Passos Coelho, are “misinformed” regarding the immigration law ” and Ana Catarina Mendes accused Passos of spreading fear. In 2023, there was no longer any such geringonça and the Minister of Internal Affairs was none other than the moderate José Luís Carneiro when residence permits were granted to thousands of immigrants from Portuguese-speaking countries without checking their criminal records in their country of origin, as the law requires.

In Portugal, in addition to the guilt that dies single, we also have the guilt that those who ally themselves with the PS live with. The BE and the PCP did not deceive anyone. The PS did. But for future reference, let it be noted that yes, Costa's PS did carry out a structural reform. It is called uncontrolled immigration.